_O let not my blood be upon them and their Children, whom the fraud and faction of some, not the malice of all, have excited to crucifie me._ _But thou, O Lord, canst and wilt (as thou didst my Redeemer) both exalt and perfect me by my sufferings, which have more in them of thy Mercie, then of mans Crueltie, or thy own Justice._ * * * * * 27. _To the Prince of_ Wales. Son, If these Papers with some others, wherein I have set down the private reflections of my Conscience, and my most impartiall thoughts touching the chief passages, which have been most remarkable or disputed in my late troubles, come to your hands, to whom they are chiefly designed; they may be so far usefull to you, as to state your judgement aright in what hath passed; whereof a pious is the best use can be made; and they may also give you some directions, how to remedy the present distempers, and prevent (if God will) the like for time to come. It is some kind of deceiving and lessening the injury of my long restraint, when I find my leisure and solitude have produced something worthy of my self, and usefull to you; That neither You nor any other may hereafter measure my Cause by the Successe, nor my judgment of things by my Misfortunes, which I count the greater by far, because they have so far lighted upon you and some others whom I have most cause to love as well as my self, and of whose unmerited sufferings I have a greater sense then of Mine own. [Illustration: Natus May 29 An^o 1630 Ætatis suæ] But this advantage of wisdom You have above most Princes, that You have begun, and now spent some years of discretion, in the experience of troubles, and exercise of patience, wherein Piety, and all Vertues, both Morall and Politicall, are commonly better planted to a thriving (as trees set in winter) then in the warmth, and serenity of times, or amidst those delights, which usually attend Princes Courts in times of peace and plenty, which are prone, either to root up all plants of true Vertue and Honour, or to be contented only with some leaves, and withering formalities of them, without any reall fruits, such as tend to the publique good, for which Princes should alwaies remember they are born, and by providence designed. The evidence of which different education the holy Writ affords us in the contemplation of _David_ and _Rehoboam_: The one prepared by many afflictions for a flourishing Kingdom, the other softned by the unparaleld prosperity of Solomons Court, and so corrupted to the great diminution, both for Peace, Honor, and Kingdom, by those flatteries, which are as unseparable from prosperous Princes, as Flies are from fruit in summer; whom adversitie, like cold weather, drives away.